


The Beacon-Keepers

by Lbilover



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 05:59:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8737519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/pseuds/Lbilover
Summary: While gathering wood for the ascent of Caradhras, Boromir tells Pippin about his time spent with the beacon-keepers of Eilenach.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Fandomaid Nepal fundraiser, for Tolkienfancaiti, who wanted friendship fic with some members of the Fellowship. This is a blend of book and movie verse, inspired by the magnificent 'lighting of the beacons' sequence in the movie ROTK. In the book, the beacons were in the foothills, but in the movie they are at the tops of the mountain peaks.
> 
> http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Warning_beacons_of_Gondor

_'I will add a word of advice, if I may,' said Boromir. 'I was born under the shadow of the White Mountains and know something of journeys in the high places. We shall meet bitter cold, if no worse, before we come down on the other side. It will not help us to keep so secret that we are frozen to death. When we leave here, where there are still a few trees and bushes, each of us should carry a faggot of wood, as large as he can bear.'_

The Company dispersed to gather wood to take with them. Only two carried axes: Gimli and Sam, who still had with him the small hatchet he'd brought from home. The others gathered windfall branches or broke them from the stunted trees. It was tedious and tiring labour, especially for the hobbits. 

Pippin picked up such smaller branches as he could find, and then tried to break a larger limb in two. The holly-wood was quite strong, however, and resisted his efforts. 

'Allow me, Master Peregrin,' said a voice. Boromir took the branch from Pippin and easily snapped it between his gloved hands. 'There you are.' He handed the pieces back to Pippin.

'Thank you,' Pippin said, marvelling as he often did at the Man's strength. 'Boromir...' he added hesitantly.

'Yes?' Boromir looked down at him with an enquiring lift of his brows.

'Will it really be that bad up there?' He pointed with one of the sticks at Caradhras, its snowy head shrouded in grey clouds. 'We have no such mountains in the Shire, and it snows only rarely.'

Boromir stared at the mountain, his profile seeming as stern and unyielding. 'It will be bitterly cold, and the air will be thin and hard to breathe. If fortune favours us, we should encounter nothing worse than that. But mountains can be treacherous, Master Peregrin. Blizzards can descend out of nowhere, blowing and blinding, and avalanches can sweep the unwary away in an instant or bury them fathoms deep in snow.'

Pippin shuddered. 'I wish we didn't have to go that way,' he said. 'Have you ever been in a blizzard, Boromir?'

'Yes, twice.' His gaze became distant as if he were seeing not Caradhras but some other mountain. 'When I was fourteen, my father sent me to Eilenach, to spend a season with the beacon-keepers, and while there I experienced first-hand a mountain's fury.'

'What is Eilenach and who are the beacon-keepers?' interrupted Pippin, curiosity, his besetting sin, getting the better of him. 

'All along the range of the White Mountains to north and south, Gondor has warning beacons, Master Peregrin. Their names are as familiar to us as the names of yonder mountains are to Gimli: Amon Dîn, Eilenach, Nardol, Erelas, Min-Rimmon, Calenhad and Halifirien we call them. They were built by the first Stewards of Gondor, and though it has been many and many a year since they were last needed, the beacon-keepers maintain them in constant readiness.' He added grimly, 'It may well be that for the first time in my lifetime I shall see the signal fires lit and their long labours prove not in vain.'

'But why would they need to light them?' 

'Because of him we do not name. If Minas Tirith is beset, we will use the beacons to summon aid from our ally to the north, Rohan.'

'Surely it won't come to that,' Pippin said. Frodo had told him and Merry that Aragorn planned to go to Minas Tirith. He couldn't imagine any army overcoming a city protected by Strider and by men such as Boromir, so stalwart and proud. 

'Who can say, but if such a day _should_ come to pass, the beacon-keepers will not fail in their duty.'

Pippin crouched to disentangle a branch from a thicket of thorns. 'Tell me about them,' he said, for he sensed that Boromir, who was usually a reticent man, had more to share. 'And about your sojourn with them. Was it fun?'

At that, a smile lightened Boromir's countenance. He shook his head in evident amusement. 'Only a halfling would ask such a question.'

'Fun is important to us,' Pippin replied gravely, though his lips twitched. 'And food, too, of course.'

'Of course,' Boromir agreed, just as gravely. 'As to your question, I went thither under protest, for it seemed to me the very opposite of fun: drudgery if not worse. I wanted to be a soldier, Master Peregrin, not kick my heels in a remote station with naught to do but pass endless days waiting for a signal that would never come.'

'That does sound boring,' Pippin said sympathetically.

'So I thought, but my father the Steward would not listen to my protests. "You will be Steward one day, Boromir," he told me, "and to you shall be entrusted the governing of the whole kingdom, not only its soldiers. A leader who does not know his people, all his people, shall surely fail in his duty."'

Pippin sighed. 'My father has said similar things to me. He's the Thain, you see, and I'm his only son, so someday I will also be Thain. I'm afraid he doesn't think I take that seriously enough.' It struck him that he and this tall, noble Man had something in common. How queer, he thought.

Boromir's face softened. In a kindly voice he said, 'Sometimes a man, or a halfling, must grow into his role. I have no doubt that you will do so, Pippin.'

It was the first time Boromir had called him by that name and Pippin's heart warmed to him. 'I hope you are right,' he said, although his adventures thus far didn't seem to have grown him very much. 'But you were telling me about your time at Eilenach. Did you change your mind about it being boring?'

'I did. Simply to survive in the high places takes exceptional strength and courage. Yet generations of beacon-keepers have passed their lives there, father to son, mother to daughter, never shirking their duty, though only the oldest of our elders can recall the last time the signal fires were lit.' A reminiscent light was in his grey eyes as he went on, 'They welcomed me with open arms and taught me much, as no doubt my father intended. There is honour to be found in a life not of action, but of preparation and watchfulness and endurance. Indeed, the lessons I learned from them stood me in good stead on the long solitary journey to Imladris.' A soft laugh escaped him. 'But do not think it was all drear, for there was much song and laughter and story-telling - fun, as you halflings would call it - and the high places have a magic entirely their own. Imagine it, Pippin: standing on a mountain peak at sunrise, with the world below shrouded in cloud, while you watch the snow turn to rose and gold all around you...' His voice trailed off as if he were lost in the vision his words had conjured.

'It sounds beautiful,' Pippin said, and wondered at Boromir's eloquence. 

'It is. And when the time came for me to return to the city, I did so with regret.' Boromir picked up one more branch and added it to the armload he already carried. 'But I see the others returning to our camp, Master Peregrin. We should join them.'

Pippin trotted after him, his mood now thoughtful. There was more to Boromir than he let show, it appeared. Who would have guessed the stern mien of a seasoned warrior hid a streak of poetry? Perhaps that meant that he himself had hidden depths - though what they were, he had yet to discover.

~*~

As Pippin reached for the lantern one of the ropes snapped and the basin tipped, spilling oil over the densely packed logs. He glanced fearfully at the soldiers on guard, but they were still oblivious to his small, grey-cloaked presence, more focussed on their meal than the beacon. Quickly he lifted the lantern from its hook and dropped it onto the oil soaked wood. Instantly it burst into flames. 

Pippin smiled triumphantly. He'd done it! Gandalf had said it was a chance for one of the Shire folk to prove his worth, and he hadn't let the Wizard down. But there was no time to dwell on his success, for he was standing atop a burning beacon and the greedy flames would soon be licking at his feet. He scrambled back and hastily climbed down, just as shouts erupted from the startled guards. 

Clinging to the rocks, dizzyingly high above the Pelennor, Pippin paused and craned his neck so he could look toward the north. After a breathless minute of suspense bright flame sprang into life on a distant peak. Yes, he exulted, Amon Dîn was lit! They had seen the signal fire. Pippin strained his eyes to their utmost and thought that, many leagues away, he could just make out a pinprick of light: the beacon of Eilenach. At long last, the keepers' years of waiting were over. A pang smote Pippin's heart as he thought of Boromir and their talk as they gathered wood at the foot of Caradhras the cruel - what seemed like a lifetime ago.

_'Sometimes a man, or a halfling, must grow into his role. I have no doubt that you will do so, Pippin.'_ Boromir's words came back to Pippin, and he thought that Boromir would have been glad to know that Pippin had done his duty as the beacon-keepers of Eilenach had done theirs. 

And no Ent-draught could have made Pippin feel any taller.


End file.
